On a sparsely populated island off the coast of the northwestern United States, more than a hundred environmental activists gathered last weekend to practice seaborne drills to disrupt construction on Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd.'s Westridge crude oil terminal.
In kayaks and sailboats they practiced forming blockades, raising banners and rescue techniques. Sunday culminated in a mass role play in which kayakers blockaded a large vessel and unfurled banners emblazoned with "Stop Kinder Morgan" while pretend law enforcement boats circled around creating noise, waves and simulating arrests.
The three-day camp on Lopez Island in Washington state's San Juan archipelago marks the opening of a new front in the campaign to stop Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, a 7.4 billion Canadian-dollar ($5.90 billion) project through British Columbia that gained Canadian government approval last year.
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